March 1, 2011

List-a-Beefy has figured it out and has been posting one song per day, with fascinating/trivial details, since the middle of last week. The person compiling this list has a mind-boggling fixation on the details of the Billboard charts, and this is not just thrown together, believe me. Understand the task: You have a huge group of songs when you look at 52 weeks from 55 years, but you are limited to the songs that made #1. You have to compare songs from vastly different eras. He's got Dean Martin, "Memories Are Made of This" at #199, and "TiK ToK" by Ke$ha at #198.

I mean, if I tried to do this, at least half of it would come from the 60s and there'd be whole years where I feel no emotional attachment to anything. List-a-Beefy is not like that. List-a-Beefy knows what he's doing. And he puts things into a historical framework. For example, when "It's My Party" — #196 — was #1 for 2 weeks in June 1963, replacing Jimmy Soul's "If You Wanna Be Happy," later to be shunted out, in turn by "Sukiyaki," by Kyu Sakamoto, Israel executed Adolf Eichmann. Think about it. I'm inclined to practice my skill at mnemonics with those sets of facts: There's Jimmy Soul, happily scarfing down sukiyaki at a party, while Lesley Gore is crying... over the death of — sorry, Lesley, this is mnemonics — Adolf Eichmann, whose soul drifts by...

We'll see which of the 200 best songs listed still sound fresh and new in another 55 years. Methinks most of them will have been recorded in 1955-1966 or so. There were plenty of duds and silly songs (even amazingly popular ones) from that time, but like Victorian homes, the good ones have craftsmanship in the production that doesn't exist any more. Sorry, professor, The Kinks don't cut it in that department.

The 200 best songs that reached #1, not the top 200 songs of all time.

There are tons of great songs that never reached #1 at all, for whatever reason. "Solsbury Hill" was mentioned earlier -- I love that song too, but it never came anywhere near the #1 spot on the charts and thus doesn't qualify for this particular list.